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Water Can Kill Activity
Water Can Kill Activity
Questions
1. What sort of environment (hypertonic, isotonic, hypotonic) does consuming excessive amounts of pure water
create in the body fluid that surrounds your cells? What effect would this have on your cells?
2. What types of symptoms did Jennifer, Cassandra, and James have in common? Which organ or tissue seems to
have been most affected?
3. Keeping in mind your answers to questions 1 and 2, what do you think the immediate cause of death was for
Jennifer, Cassandra, and James?
4. If you suspected that a patient’s symptoms were caused by the condition suffered by Jennifer, Cassandra, and
James, what kinds of test would you run to confirm your suspicions?
5. Once you knew the cause of their symptoms, what kind of emergency treatment might you try for a patient like
Cassandra or James if you were the doctor in charge of their care?
6. Why do you think doctors administer a saline solution instead of pure water to dehydrated patients?
References
1. Woman dies after water-drinking contest. MSNBC. January 13, 2007. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/
id/16614865/#.TymcFPmwWBg.
2. Jury awards $16 million to family in fatal radio prank. LA Times. October 29, 2009. http://latimesblogs.latimes.
com/lanow/2009/10/jury-awards-16-million-in-radio-prank-that-left-sacramentoarea-woman-dead-.html.
3. Split verdict surprises and stuns the Killpacks. Deseret News. October 13, 2005. http://www.deseretnews.com/
article/630152910/Split-verdict-surprises-and-stuns-the-Killpacks.html.
4. District officer dies after bike ride: Over-hydration cited as factor. The Washington Post. August 11, 2005. http://
www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/10/ AR2005081001460.html.
Questions
1. During periods of intense activity, your body releases an antidiuretic hormone called vasopressin that causes
the body to retain water (by decreasing the amount of water that is expelled in urine). Why does this make
endurance athletes particularly vulnerable to developing hyponatremia?
2. What might put desert-dwellers in danger of developing hyponatremia? How can they avoid this danger?
3. Babies and small children are at much greater risk for developing hyponatremia than adults. Why is this?
4. Just how much brain swelling are we talking about? The volume of a human brain is normally about 1,200cm3.
The concentration of solutes in the cerebrospinal fluid (the fluid that surrounds the brain and other parts of the
central nervous system) is normally about 300mM.
a. Normally, what is the concentration of solutes in your brain cells? Please explain your reasoning.
b. If the concentration of solutes in the cerebrospinal fluid fell to 280mM due to overconsumption of water
and loss of electrolytes through sweating, what would happen?
c. Estimate how much the brain would swell due to osmosis if the concentration of the cerebrospinal fluid
fell to 280mM. In other words, find what the new volume of the brain would be once equilibrium was
reestablished. Assume that (i) the cerebrospinal fluid is constantly replenished, so its solute concentration
won’t change; (ii) only water is passing across the cell membranes into brain cells (not solutes); and (iii) the
volume of the brain is mostly water.
Symptoms
Common symptoms of hyponatremia include confusion, decreased consciousness, hallucinations, coma, convulsions,
fatigue, headache, irritability, loss of appetite, muscle spasms or cramps, muscle weakness, nausea, restlessness, and
vomiting.
Treatment
If an underlying condition is causing the sodium/water imbalance, then treating the underlying condition may correct
the imbalance.
Depending on the exact cause of the hyponatremia, treatments may include administering a saline solution through an
IV, temporarily restricting water intake, and/or providing medications to relieve the symptoms.
Expectations/Prognosis
The outcome depends on the condition that is causing the problem. Acute hyponatremia, which develops in under
48 hours, is usually more dangerous than hyponatremia that develops slowly over a period of days or weeks (chronic
hyponatremia).
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Image in title block © Umberto Salvagnin, “Water balloon explosion 2” (http://www.flickr.com/photos/34745138@N00/4679020171), used in
accordance with CC BY 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/). Case copyright held by the National Center for Case Study Teaching
in Science, University at Buffalo, State University of New York. Originally published December 12, 2013. Please see our usage guidelines, which
outline our policy concerning permissible reproduction of this work.